


The Quick and the Dead

by kvikindi



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvikindi/pseuds/kvikindi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jehan is a serial killer of houseplants, and Combeferre is his confessor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quick and the Dead

Jehan brought his latest houseplant to the hotel on Monday. "They always die," he said with a petulant expression. "Can you doctor it? I don't understand."

Combeferre looked down at the plant: a starry saxifrage. _Saxifraga stellaris_. It drooped dispiritedly. Its vines were like worms. "This is the sixth one you've killed," he said.

Jehan wandered inside, draped himself over the sopha. "I don't know what they want. I've tried singing to them. I thought the one-- you know, the orchid, that your botanical friend brought-- might be homesick, so I got some charming little finger cymbals. I learnt a Japanese air on my flute."

"It was from Java," Combeferre said. "It was quite valuable, as well."

"Yes, well, I tried to sustain it." Jehan seemed genuinely distressed. Then again, he always did, with each new plant (each new corpse). "Can't you-- you know-- perform a post mortem examination?"

Combeferre set the plant on his writing desk. He could sense a headache coming on. Jehan's presence often induced this premonition. It wasn't that Prouvaire set out to be difficult; it was just that ordinary situations, when he entered them, became insurmountable challenges, fraught with peril. "Did you water it?" he asked.

"Yes."

"How often?"

"Oh, however often it seemed to desire it."

"I see. And how did it communicate to you its desire?"

"Just its general affect."

Combeferre touched his temple.

Rummaging on the side table, Jehan had found a magnifying glass. He held it up to his eye, then inspected his palm. "What do you know of the study of hands? They say that each of us has a life-line, you know, and that if you learn to chart it, you can tell the exact day and even instant of your death."

"One wonders if the same is true for plants. In which case, what very smooth leaves must your house plants have had."

Jehan looked at him in reproach. "That is very harsh of you, Combeferre."

"Then I am sorry. But you must learn that caring for a living creature is not an art or a hobby. It's not an instrument that you can set away when you are tired for the evening. You have to practice it diligently, as a craft."

"But I do."

"You intend to. You have good intentions."

Jehan bit his lip. "But, Combeferre, you can see my position. Surely you can. You and I are animals, living creatures, and how I'd hate to be watered every evening at nine. Just counting down the minutes till the whole dreary meal began. The same sunlight, day after day. I'd rather die, I think, than that."

"Well." Combeferre did not like the turn of the conversation. He was uncomfortable when Prouvaire talked about death: the excited tone, the quaver of emotion.He knew that there would come a day when death disturbed him less than it now did, when he would not have this need to shut his eyes for a moment, like a child: it can't see you if you can't see it.

Jehan saw the look on his face and pressed-- cruelly, Combeferre thought. "Poor Combeferre. Have I brought the grim shadow of death into your chamber of _bios_?" His eyes strayed to the plant, to its papery flowers. "I suppose I often do. Perhaps you need it."

"And you need to learn to give your plants water." Combeferre tried to make his voice cheerful again. "Each day. To a schedule."

"How tedious." Jehan stood. "I'll try."

"It's not a question of trying. There are rules you must follow. We all require certain things to live."

"Yes." Jehan was moving restlessly through the room now. He touched an Argand lamp, a bit of paper. His long hair fell in his face; he pushed it back again. He wasn't looking at Combeferre when he said, "I'm sorry it died. I know you judge me."

"I don't." He did.

"I always think, you know, that I'll pick up the knack of it. But it's like I can't make things stay alive. And I want to. I do."

"Maybe--" Combeferre stopped. "There's more than one way to keep things alive."

"Mm."

"I mean-- it had a good life, your plant."

"Short."

"It saw the world. It saw all Paris from your window."

Prouvaire looked up. He smiled shyly. "I carried it with me to Acquitaine," he admitted. "I thought it might be inspired by the scenery there."

On the diligence, Combeferre thought with resignation, in the dark and closed air and damp. But he said only, "If there were a palm-line for happiness, it would be a venerably wrinkled plant."

Again, that sudden smile: like a flower opening. "What a beautiful thought, Combeferre. I shall treasure that. I think you and I should try, whatever our life-lines, to have very venerably wrinkled hands."

A knock at the door cut the conversation.

"Enjolras," Combeferre said. "Could you let him in?"

Prouvaire did so. Enjolras in a room allowed for no shadows. He was all brightness (though at this instant harried, distracted). Prouvaire-- having exchanged greetings-- slipped out the door. He had probably forgotten already, Combeferre thought, that there had ever been a plant.

But Combeferre touched one leaf. He was reluctant to surrender. Sometimes deep inside a plant there was still some life, some spark that could struggle. A memory of the warm South, Prouvaire's voice singing, threads of laughter, the smoke from a cigarette. He wanted to save the plant, to prove himself wrong. He set it by the window. Live, he thought. Live.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr as septembriseur


End file.
